Tell me about something you very much wanted, but were afraid to begin.
..... i have struggled with beauty all my life.... as in... clinging tightly to the gorgeous, crystalline, purely-imagined fragments of beauty that rose up in my brain - huge, hallowed monuments of perfection in my brain - a project maybe, an idea, even a picture of who I wanted to be... close my eyes and imagine this rarified vision - complete, shiny - new - without deflect or flaw - all-smiling, all-dancing, all-sparkly and grand....
so enamored of the perfect thing emblazoned inside my eyelids that i would squeeze them tight, not wanting to part with the pristine-ness of such sight - knowing that when i opened my eyes, it would be gone - the wallpaper changed back to something far less lofty - and i would be confronted by the unglamorous reality of life - as it was - as it IS - and continues to be - messy. scrappy. beauty not coming out to dance and do a shimmy for you with a perfect pair of tits, but rather more a mousy, bookish brunette - whose gorgeous-ness is revealed quietly, slowly - in the work of her fingers, the gentle, graceful way she flicks her wrist, the small, loving precision of her feet and hands.... as if you showed up day-after-day to behold and learn the ways of this at first un-beguiling creature (called life, don't ya know).. her beauty would not bowl you over. no... in fact, at times, she would seem to be so plain, so god-damn ordinary and dull it could cause you to weep..
but if you chose to stick it out.. remain.. travel by her side and commit to allowing that beauty to slowly eek its way into view - reveal itself to you - in ways mostly quiet and un-sophisticate - you would find - eventually - that what once seemed so plain - so dull - lacking in luster and shiny perfection - well this thing - contained so much frigging Elegance, such flavor, such Verve!!! - your eyes could barely contain its sight...
As if by the mere perpetual act of looking - with the clear intention of wanting to see.... your eyes would be cleansed... your vision righted... your pupils grown now accustomed to the now warm light of day - not craving the gleaming darkness of inner fancy - open to the sun - not drowning in the imagined landscapes of lunar fantasy....
geez, i've got a way of be-laboring a point....
so i mean to say....
rather than waiting till i've got it right, till a thing is perfect, rosy, gorgeous, just-frickin'-so... i'm making it my practice... to bring forth just what is.. right now.. my imperfect offering.. whatever it may be - it ain't perfect. it ain't clean. it's not anything that will send you into paroxysms of ecstasy or delight.. but it's honest.. it's real... it's something. and it's there.
and hopefully, we'll find... each one of us as we got about this lovely business of bringing our messy, gorgeous, imperfect selves to the table each day... that if we're willing to rub our eyes, tilt the head and shift our gaze ever so slightly - there's so much to Behold... it makes perfection's gleam look dull by compare...
Here's to a week of beating, broken Beauty. May you offer it up by the bowlful...
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